


Navigating By Different Stars

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: (Spitelout and Snotlout), Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awkward Conversations, Bad Parenting, Brother-Sister Relationships, Difficult Decisions, Dragons: Race to the Edge, Established Relationship, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Female Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Leadership, Male-Female Friendship, Marriage Proposal, Mother-Son Relationship, New Berk (How to Train Your Dragon), Post-Canon, good parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23072758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, chief of New Berk, figures out life without dragons one step at a time. Creating a new trading post on the Edge is a very big step.
Relationships: Astrid & Fishlegs & Hiccup & Ruffnut & Snotlout & Tuffnut, Astrid Hofferson & Stormfly, Cloudjumper & Valka (How to Train Your Dragon), Dagur & the Triple Strike, Fishlegs Ingerman/Ruffnut Thorston, Heather & Astrid Hofferson, Heather & Windshear (How to Train Your Dragon), Heather/Fishlegs Ingerman, Hiccup & Dagur, Hiccup & Mala, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Stoick the Vast, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Valka, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson, Hookfang & Snotlout Jorgenson, Ruffnut Thorston & Tuffnut Thorston, Ruffnut Thorston/Throk, Snotlout Jorgenson & Spitelout Jorgenson, Stoick the Vast/Valka
Comments: 8
Kudos: 74





	Navigating By Different Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Celeste for beta-reading this. :)

“You think this is a bad idea,” Hiccup said with resignation, and got out of the way of Gobber, who was trimming a sail.

“I don’t,” Astrid said, one hand on the tiller. “Where did you get that from?”

“The look on your face.”

“I’m anxious about going back,” Astrid said. “We all are.”

“Surely this isn’t the first time you’ve visited this outpost since you left,” said Valka, lying down on the deck due to seasickness. The seas around the Edge had always been fairly rough, but that had never been a concern before.

“Well, no... It’s just that...” Astrid sighed, and course-corrected. “Well.”

Hiccup walked off to the prow, and stood by it, watching the beach approach as Astrid steered them expertly in. She was a much better sailor than he was, mostly because she did not get distracted. He kept trying to invent a better sail, or rudder, or something he planned to call a lifejacket that everyone said was pointless because they all knew how to swim.

He stood by his decision. The Edge was reasonably well known and more central to their allies than New Berk. They needed an entrepôt and reliable staging post for voyages back to Berk or points beyond, and they needed somewhere for merchants to visit that wasn’t New Berk. There was no point in dropping off the map if you weren’t going to do it properly.

But that didn’t change the fact that none of them had ever, for as long as they’d lived at the Edge, arrived by boat. The cliffs looked all wrong.

Hiccup rested a hand on the ship’s dragon figurehead. They still hadn’t changed them; Hiccup wasn’t sure they ever would. And this one, on the chief’s ship, was still Toothless.

Astrid grounded the boat on the beach. Hiccup’s feet, flesh and metal, hit familiar sand.

They were the first to arrive. That was intentional, but it would have been better if they had arrived earlier, instead of missing their course because the Edge had been the exclusive preserve of dragon riders used to navigating from the air and only getting everyone into harbour as the sun began to set. 

“I’ll show you around tomorrow, Mum,” Hiccup said. “Before all our guests arrive, I hope.” Dagur, Mala and Heather would probably still show up on dragonback, he thought, and winced at the very thought. In the meantime, there were things to do, fires to build, food to get cooking, camp to set up for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t fit in dragon rider huts, gantries and paths to test to make sure they hadn’t rotted...

“I look forward to it,” Valka said, in her gentle way. “It certainly seems very impressive. Very well defended. I liked the sentry posts, Astrid.”

“What makes you think they weren’t my idea?” Hiccup demanded, waving Fishlegs and the twins’ boat onto the beach.

“I know you,” Valka said dryly. “That’s what.”

“Hey!”

Astrid laughed, slightly strained. “Thanks, Valka. They used to be occupied by a species of dragons local to the island... but they don’t seem to be here any more. I’m not surprised. They acknowledged Toothless as an alpha long before he actually was one.”

There was an awkward silence, into which all the wrong noises clanged: Viking yells of ‘this is my parking space, get yer own’ and ‘why did you bring your _pet_ sheep, Wullie, you idiot’, boats crunching on the sand or dropping anchor, pre-prepared torches going up with a hiss. There were no dragon sounds. No Night Terrors in the trees, no Hookfang flaming in indignation, no Stormfly cawing.

“It’s going to be quiet,” Hiccup said, glancing over his shoulder to Astrid.

“We’ll get used to it,” Astrid said, smiling weakly as Hiccup caught her eye.

Valka coughed to break the moment of grief. She had her own moments, when she tried to make a leap and hesitated because there was no Cloudjumper to catch her, or at dawn, when she should have woken to a chorus of no-longer-snoozing dragons. Breakfast was always a very quiet meal. But this moment she didn’t know, because she didn’t know the Edge, which - Hiccup was totally confident - she would have loved.

“I expect the sunset is very beautiful from that observation platform,” Valka said. “Hiccup, why don’t I help you check the huts are still habitable?”

Most of the Berk delegation were just pleased to have arrived. Some of them - and in this case, Hiccup mostly meant his dragon riders - were subdued, even a little uneasy. Others still had the excitement of discovery running through their veins: for people back on Berk, Hiccup had realised from half-conversations and hints that his dad had dropped back in the day, the Edge was exotic. Mysterious. Nobody ever went there except serious dragon riders, and even on Berk, most people couldn't handle more than an hour aloft. It was at least three hours' ride directly to the Edge, if you knew the way, and few could manage that. Hiccup himself frequently stayed up far longer than he should have done, riding the thermals with Toothless, tumbling to earth when they landed, laughing, his hands numb and stiff and he hadn't even noticed -

Okay, not helpful, not helpful, and painful too.

Astrid asked if they wanted to set up in Hiccup's old hut, as per the previous plan. The sun was falling rapidly into the sea, a blaze of orange backlighting Astrid like the flames she used to run towards as a firefighter, half a lifetime ago. Hiccup stood and looked around the clubhouse, thrown open but still empty: it seemed to have been designated his headquarters. Most of Berk’s Vikings had gone into the more easily accessible stables and underground caverns, to marvel at what the dragon riders had done here first and built bigger and better on Old Berk, and - on New Berk - would never use again. 

"Nah," Hiccup said distractedly, "nah, it's late and we have enough to do getting everyone sorted for the night - okay, dragon riders up here tonight. Call it a meeting. Tell Fishlegs to bring the marshmallows. And the Maces and Talons board."

It should have been reminiscing about the old days, should have been familiar and friendly. Snotlout should have provoked Astrid into snarling at him, the twins should have been cackling in a corner, Fishlegs and Hiccup should have been picking over a new invention or a Dragon Eye lens together, and everywhere there should have been dragons. Without those scaled and murmuring hulks the place was just too big. Why had they never realised how big they had made the Edge, or how small they were?

The twins kept hanging over Fishlegs' shoulders; he was writing something, but kept throwing drafts into the fire. Hiccup wondered if Fishlegs was getting to the point of No More Mister Nice Ingerman - he was probably the strongest of them, pound for pound, and it wouldn't be great if he concussed Tuffnut again just trying to get Tuff away from his private correspondence - but for some reason he ignored them.

"Hey," Ruffnut said. "Why aren't you finishing these? They're good. Heartfelt and shit."

"None of them are _right_ ," Fishlegs said, more sad than frustrated. He glanced up and caught Hiccup's eye. "I'm trying to work out what to say to Heather tomorrow."

Hiccup sighed, and leaned against Astrid, who was sitting tucked under his arm. "You and me both."

"Oh my Thor," Ruffnut said, trying to summon up some mystery, but her heart clearly wasn't in it. "Astrid-"

"About the _dragons_ , Ruffnut," Hiccup interrupted wearily. "About the dragons."

"We'll all have a lot to say to her, I expect," Astrid said, in a tone of voice so subtly strange that Hiccup levered himself upright and stared down at the top of her head.

Astrid felt his movement and craned her neck to look at him. "It's nothing, Hiccup." She disentangled herself from his arm and kissed him very lightly on the cheek as she clambered to her feet and stretched. "We should all get some sleep. Tomorrow will be… _interesting_."

Hiccup laid down on the sleeping rolls they'd brought, and Astrid laid down next to him, but it took him a long while to fall asleep. And even as he did, he thought he felt Astrid beside him still tense and watchful, a hand never far from her axe.

Tomorrow was indeed interesting. Hiccup could wake at dawn all he liked (and he didn't like it at all) but there was no keeping up with his responsibilities. Astrid had vanished somewhat before dawn, waking him along the way, to take a party of scouts and Valka round the island. Before Hiccup had even managed to brush his teeth, Fishlegs came bustling up with urgent concerns about the structural integrity of one of the gantries the Vikings were using to sightsee in the underground complexes, so Hiccup had to break the damaged gantry all the way as a temporary measure in order to put off the gawkers. Fishlegs was appalled, and wanted to talk about he was appalled, and how we shouldn't destroy our infrastructure, Hiccup, we don't know how things will turn out - clearly something he'd been wanting to get off his chest for weeks, but not something Hiccup could help him with right now, because he could see the twins with some of their last remaining stocks of Monstrous Nightmare gel, and that very much needed to stop.

"Hiccup, we need to discuss this," Fishlegs shouted after him, audibly disappointed. 

"I know, I know," Hiccup yelled, diving off the side of the foreshortened gantry and opening the wings of his flight suit wide to swoop down on the twins and forcibly separate them from the gel.

He gave the This Is What We Have, There Won't Be Any More, We Need It To Last So We Can Adapt speech. He gave it at least twice a day. The twins knew it off by heart.

"Hiccup, I can't believe you would stifle our creativity like this," Tuffnut complained, overdramatic as ever. Hiccup knew that off by heart too. One of Tuffnut's flailing arms bounced off Hiccup's flight helmet and Tuffnut paused his dramatic swoon to apologise.

"I've been stifling your creativity daily since we were fifteen. I don't know what you're surprised about." Hiccup turned to Ruffnut. "Ruff? What have you got to say?"

"We've got more on New Berk," Ruffnut said. "I thought there was enough to take a gourd for fireworks." 

Hiccup opened his mouth to object, and stopped halfway. It wasn't a bad idea. This was a party, after all, and the way things were going they'd need to pull out all the stops to make it feel like one.

"Okay. Good idea. Half a gourd. Talk to Gobber to sign it out."

"Half a gourd!" Tuffnut screamed. "Hiccup, my artistic _vision_!"

"That'll only do a minute," Ruffnut pointed out.

"A minute is plenty," Hiccup said firmly. "Talk to Gobber."

"There are still a few Monstrous Nightmares about," Ruffnut said. "Wild. We could get you some more while it's there."

"Ooh." Tuffnut steepled his fingers and darted his eyes from side to side. "A _quest_."

" _No quests_ ," Hiccup's mouth said before his brain had caught up, rather louder than he'd intended. Tuffnut and Ruffnut stared at him, and sudden silence indicated that the rest of the nearby Berkians were listening in too. Hiccup sighed and rubbed his hands through his hair. He'd spotted grey there the other day, and was it really a surprise? "I need you guys here," he said, more softly. "I need all my dragon riders here."

"Uh, Hiccup," Tuffnut said. "We're not dragon riders any more."

"We'll always be dragon riders," Hiccup said wearily. "One way or another."

"Okay," Ruffnut said. She was looking at him very strangely. "Point taken. Half a gourd."

"Thanks," Hiccup said. "Uh, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Just then you sounded exactly like your dad," Ruffnut said. She did not elaborate.

"Well, I guess he is… he _was…_ my dad." Hiccup winced.

"Yeah," Ruffnut said. "Anyway. Fireworks, coming right up. And absolutely _no_ quests."

"Appreciated," Hiccup said, and turned around to trudge back upstairs the long way. It took forever and it hurt his stump.

I miss Toothless, Hiccup thought. He paused and rotated his knee, which didn't help. Either there was something caught in the prosthetic, probably because he'd rushed dressing, or he needed to take another cup of that tea Gothi made. He sat down on a landing and bent his head to investigate.

I need to build something that lifts, he thought. 

There had been a bit of fabric caught in the prosthetic. Hiccup removed it and started climbing again. All the way back up to the main complex, he built blueprints in his head instead of thinking about Toothless.

Snotlout was in charge of food. Hiccup had wondered about this arrangement before realising that organising food on this scale was less about cooking and more about making sure the food and the cooks and the equipment showed up so the three could be combined, and Snotlout was actually not bad at that. There were no opportunities for grandstanding and Hiccup had given Spitelout the vital task of getting Gothi to the Edge in one piece, which removed the two major obstacles to Snotlout getting things done. Hopefully if Gothi whacked him with her stick often enough Spitelout would be too bruised to pick at Snotlout for not meeting his ridiculous requirements. 

Picking his way through the area taken over by the cooks, watching Snotlout noisily panic because a string of garlic had gone astray and everything needed to be perfect, Hiccup gave thanks that he'd never had a shot at meeting his father's original expectations. If he'd been as successful as Snotlout and had the bar for being an acceptable son constantly moved out of his reach, he too would be that neurotic _and_ arrogant today.

Hiccup stood a decent distance away before clearing his throat. Snotlout could get pretty jumpy when he was like this.

"-what?" Snotlout screamed as he spun round, inadvertently proving Hiccup absolutely right. His shoulders dropped and he let out a long breath. "Hiccup. _Thor_. Warn a guy, will you."

"Sorry," Hiccup said, instead of arguing. "I just came to see how things were going."

"They're fine! They're going fine!"

"Great. Knew I could count on you."

"I gave Freda the recipe for Heather's mutton shanks. It was pretty popular when I last visited the Berserkers. And I asked for some of those salad things the Defenders of the Wing are always making, though if you ask me it's just leaves." Snotlout took off his helmet and scratched his head. "Uh."

"How are you finding the Edge?"

There was a longer than usual pause. "It's different," Snotlout said finally. 

"I miss Toothless more here."

"Yeah. Yeah." Snotlout cleared his throat and coughed. "I mean, Hookie. Yeah. It's harder here."

Hiccup, who had been deciphering Snotlout since they were old enough to talk and now spoke fluent Jorgenson, recognised the signs of emotional confusion and let the pause sit.

"I miss him," Snotlout said finally. "I mean, dragons, we all miss them, so many things were so much easier, right, but it's different. We were the first." He looked at Hiccup and looked away again quickly. "I mean, you were ahead of the rest of us, but…"

"It's okay. I know what you mean." Hiccup sighed. "It's hard." 

Snotlout spun his helmet over and over in his hands and stared at it flickering in the light of the cookfires.

"How's your dad doing?" Hiccup asked, eventually. There hadn't been any talk of a change of leadership, not yet; Spitelout was canny enough not to take on Hiccup directly. Hiccup was the better fighter, Stoick's chosen heir, and he himself had built a lot of credit and standing on his own account, plus was betrothed to Astrid and a son to Valka, two women no Viking would willingly cross. But if Spitelout thought he could present another candidate… Snotlout had talked about it in the past, and Hiccup had dismissed it as him talking his usual brand of nonsense, but there was probably something significant about the fact that Snotlout now responded to insinuations with anger rather than with easy, prideful boasting about how of course he could do it, if Hiccup were - uh - indisposed.

Snotlout let out an irritable huff. "Talking a lot of shit. We shouldn't have let the dragons get away, we should have a different chief, we should never have left Old Berk, blah blah blah. As if _he_ understands why you did what you did. That's his problem, the A Team never actually went out on the frontlines against Grimborn or whoever. Whereas _we_ were always fighting or patrolling or - or whatever. People kept trying to kill us in our beds! It was change the game or _lose_. This new game sucks, but we're not dead yet and the dragons are safe! He doesn't _understand_."

That's not all he doesn't understand, Hiccup thought privately. And that's not his only problem. 

Snotlout jammed his helmet grumpily onto his head. "Anyway, I told him to shut up," he spat, surprising the Helheim out of Hiccup. "I don't want to be chief. It's an awful job."

Hiccup let out a heartfelt sigh. "Tell me about it."

"Hiccup, I know I've said a bunch of stuff in the past, but I was joking. It was a joke! For Thor's sake, you have to make decisions all the time, and they're always really shitty choices -"

"I know!" Hiccup said hastily, before someone could notice. The cooking area was large and loud but Snotlout kept raising his voice. "I know, Snotlout, okay? It's fine." He took a breath, and so did Snotlout. "Look, if things are bad, you could always stay with me until your dad settles down." _And everyone realises you're loyal to me_. 

Snotlout pulled an amazing face. "I wouldn't want to, uh, get between you and Astrid."

Incredible. Most of Berk had zero compunction whatever about bursting into Hiccup's house at any hour of the day or night. And he no longer had Toothless to squawk at them.

"Or if someone needs to have a chat with your dad, explain things to him, I bet Astrid would."

Snotlout paled swiftly. "Um, no, I think she would leave him in pieces. And he is still… my dad. Maybe your mum, though? Valka?"

"Sure, but she's not really that scary."

Valka had other ways of making her presence felt. They included a great deal of quiet listening, and (after many years among dragons) a disregard for gravity and normal social conventions. She often moved at ground level… but not always.

"Are you _kidding_ me," Snotlout said. "She's like you! But quiet, so you can't hear her coming! And kind of feral - in a, um, a good way."

Hiccup blinked at him, and then set the whole situation aside never to be thought about again. "Sure. I'll have a word."

"Thanks. Dad's really getting on my nerves. I tried moving out to get away and he moved back in _with me_."

"Argh," Hiccup said, completely involuntarily, and then spotted something just over Snotlout's shoulder - a familiar shining flicker in the air, flying out of the sun. "Wait… is that - ?"

He pointed. Snotlout turned around and stared into the sky. A second flicker, somewhat less shiny, joined the first. They moved out of the centre of the cooking area towards the shore, and saw ships on the horizon, a little behind. Hiccup pulled a telescope from his pocket and squinted at them. 

"Berserker sails."

"Yup," Snotlout said. "Looks like Dagur and Heather. And probably Mala, too. Good luck with _that_ conversation."

"Thanks, Snotlout." Hiccup turned to go, and was surprised when Snotlout called him back.

"Hey! Hiccup!"

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking about what Astrid said last night. About already knowing what to say to Heather. Do you, uh, think -"

"I think Astrid won't attack Heather if she isn't provoked," said Hiccup, who had also been thinking about this.

"And if Heather provokes her?"

"Not going to happen," Hiccup said, with a conviction he didn't feel. Heather was a hothead, and fairly loosely hinged when it came to a cause she cared about deeply. Such as dragons. If Heather lost it at Hiccup, Astrid would intervene. And Heather versus Astrid would probably be a pretty even fight.

Fishlegs had mentioned, before they left, that Astrid was really interested in Razorwhips like Windshear...

"Well, good luck, anyway," Snotlout said, as this knowledge sat uneasily between them.

"Thanks, Snotlout," said Hiccup.

Heather outflew Dagur. This was not a surprise. She usually did, and Dagur would feel it to be his duty to stick with the incoming convoy of Berserkers and Defenders of the Wing, anyway. Watching Heather come into land - Thor, even her flying was angry - Hiccup hoped very much that one of Dagur and Mala's kids was cut out for chiefdom, because Heather wasn't suited, and failing Oswald or his little sister Thyra, there were no other candidates to unite both tribes.

Fishlegs picked up the coloured batons and semaphored Heather in to land in the clubhouse as Hiccup came up the stairs, breathing hard and rubbing at his bad knee unconsciously. He realised he was doing it and stopped, leaning against a wall and trying to catch his breath at the same time as pasting his chiefly smile onto his face. He glanced sideways at Astrid, who was sitting on the table with a fine spread of weapons around her, putting the final finishing touches to the gleaming edge on her favourite axe. She felt his glance and looked up at him through her fringe, smiling.

"I, uh- I didn't think you'd be back in time for this, Astrid."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Astrid said cheerfully. "One second. Nearly finished."

Windshear crashed through the open clubhouse doors and landed with a bone-rattling thud. Fishlegs leapt out of the way and cried "Heather!" with slightly uncertain delight, and Hiccup staggered against a table. It was so much harder to get used to balancing off dragonback than he'd expected: the others had managed within a few months, but they all had their original issue legs.

"Hiccup Haddock!" Heather yelled, ripping the hood and flying mask she favoured from her face and leaping down from Windshear's back. "What have you _done_?"

She unslung her axe from around her back and advanced on Hiccup. Hiccup held his ground, and took a moment to be glad he hadn't brought his sword: escalation was the last thing this situation needed.

Besides, he had a fully loaded Astrid on a hair trigger.

"Heather," Fishlegs said uneasily, moving forward with his hands up.

"Not now, Fishlegs! This is between me and Hiccup!"

_Scraaaaape_. 

It wasn't a loud sound, but somehow it cut through. Even Windshear's head swung round, and Heather stopped mid-step.

"Perfect," Astrid sighed, ran a caressing thumb lightly across the edge of the blade to check her work, and laid down both axe and grindstone before turning her smile on her friend. "Heather!" 

She jumped up and ran across to the other woman, enveloping her in a hug. Heather, caught off guard, hugged her back, and her grip on the axe loosened. 

"I'm so glad you could come. We've really missed you out on New Berk, haven't we, Fishlegs?" 

"Yeah!" said Fishlegs, who very obviously had no idea where Astrid was going with this, but - equally obviously - recognised it as the only viable way out. 

"I've missed you too," Heather said, "bu-"

"Of course, things have been pretty busy," Astrid continued merrily. "It's much harder without the dragons, and no village was built in a day. But now we're really settled you could come for a proper visit!"

Heather tried to wriggle out of Astrid's grip. "About that, Astrid, I need to talk to Hic-"

"Without your axe," said Astrid.

Heather stopped.

"You got out your axe. You don't talk with an axe - not with words, anyway." Astrid smiled at Heather, and Hiccup's eyes darted sideways, trying to count the weapons on the table. He made and repaired all of Astrid's kit these days, he should know -

There were several pieces missing. Small, easily concealed ones. 

"If you came here to let your axe do the talking," Astrid said, very softly, "we're going to have a very different conversation, Heather, just you and me."

Fishlegs shifted his weight. Hiccup urgently tried to communicate with eyebrows alone that this was a bad time to twitch.

There was a moment of perfect stillness, and then Heather lowered her axe, and Astrid let go. 

"Guess I'm too much of a Berserker," Heather said, lightly and coolly but with a certain tension underlying it.

"That wasn't a good excuse when it was Dagur, and he was unstable," Astrid said, in much the same tone, and watched Heather carefully as she put down her axe, and went over to comfort an unsettled Windshear. 

"I guess not," Heather repeated, without expression. 

Hiccup said nothing.

"Windshear's looking well," Astrid said politely. 

"Yeah. I think she's finally growing into her mature adult colouration."

"That's fascinating!" Fishlegs burst out, enthusiasm clearly multiplied by relief that there wasn't going to be a murder. At least not immediately. "I thought her scales were looking closer to blue!"

Heather smiled - her real, soft smile. “Yes. It’s hard to see the change day to day, but I was visiting the Wingmaidens and they commented on it.”

“I guess they don’t spend a lot of time with the adults,” Hiccup said, interest temporarily overcoming common sense. “They mostly work with the babies, right?”

Heather’s smile dimmed slightly. “Yes. That’s right.” She turned away, facing into Windshear’s shoulder, and laid a hand on the dragon’s scales. Her head bowed, dark braid slipping forward off her shoulder.

Fishlegs took a few tentative steps towards her and then hesitated. Hiccup remembered that he and Heather had broken off their on again-off again relationship a year ago, and had just been corresponding again when Grimmel struck. At which point they'd all suddenly been occupied with other things. Hiccup wasn't even sure Fishlegs had been able to answer Heather's last letter.

He also wasn't sure how Ruffnut's on again-off again interest in Fishlegs fit in, and he absolutely wasn't going to ask, in case someone told him.

"What have you done, Hiccup Haddock?" Heather repeated, much more softly. Now she sounded like she was going to cry. Astrid looked down at her feet and visibly suppressed the urge to run to her friend, and Fishlegs' face crumpled.

"The only thing I could do to protect as many dragons as possible for as long as possible," Hiccup heard himself say, and marvelled at how cracked and weary his voice sounded. Had his dad ever seemed so tired? Hiccup had always thought Stoick inexhaustible; he'd never seen his father so much as hesitate until Bludvist.

Heather let out a scornful huff, preparatory to a furious speech. Hiccup rushed in.

"It was getting impossible, even for us," he said. " _Six_ combat fliers trying to protect every dragon in the archipelago. The A Team were only really good for home defence or backup. You have to learn from childhood if you're going to fight on dragonback really effectively, and no-one would let their kids join in, because they _saw_ how we lived, and they were just waiting till one of us got killed. Except Gustav, whose parents don't know where he is from one day to the next, and don't really care, either. The threats were getting bigger and striking multiple targets at once. You can't come to our aid if you're defending your family, which is where you're needed. Knock one threat down, another shows up, bigger than the last. We were wildly outmatched. It was only a matter of time until we lost and the whole archipelago suffered for it." He took a deep breath, and remembered how Snotlout had put it. "We _were_ losing. So I changed the game."

"You stripped the _entire archipelago_ of dragons."

Hiccup had had some time to think about this one, usually late at night, lying awake and wishing he could hear Toothless snuffling and twisting in his sleep. "No, I didn't. Toothless only took the ones that accepted him as alpha."

"They are all disappearing!"

"Is it hunters?"

"No, there haven't been any hunters since you cleaned out Grimmel and his minions, but -"

"Are they dying?"

"I'm not finding the corpses if they are -"

"Then they're safe. They've gone to the Hidden World."

"You don't know that! Anyway, your mother ran a dragon sanctuary and that was cleared out by Drago, so what makes you think this one is safe?"

"Because no-one knows where it is!"

"Nobody knew where the sanctuary was, did they, and that didn't last either!"

"This time only Astrid and I know. And we will _never_ give that information up."

Astrid nodded and folded her arms. She was still watching Heather, cool and still.

"Okay, I believe _Astrid_ ," Heather said, causing Hiccup's jaw to drop and Fishlegs to utter a faint, protesting squeak. "But what about you, Hiccup? You have too many hostages and too soft a heart. What happens when they get hold of your mother, or Astrid? What happens when the two of you have kids?"

Hiccup said nothing because there was nothing to say. Heather shook her head impatiently and pushed a hank of loose hair off her face.

"You panicked. And now you've stripped the archipelago of the wild dragons it needs to support the ecosystem, and us of the only feasible way to protect it!" Heather leaned hard into Windshear, who crooned uncertainly and nuzzled her head.

That's part of it, Hiccup thought. That's part of it… You were always so convinced that Toothless would never leave me, and we were the only ones that had a bond like yours and Windshear's, because we were the only ones that also relied on each other totally… except that we learned to stand alone. Windshear is the only one that's never left you, and you always thought that would never change, and now you're wondering…

Heather, not being privy to Hiccup's internal reflections, listened to his absence of riposte and let out a bitter snort. She climbed onto Windshear's back.

"Good luck explaining this to my sister-in-law," she said. "What happens when there's no Great Protector any more?"

Hiccup knew a dramatic exit line when he heard one. That was Heather's weakest argument: the Eruptodon going by the name of the Great Protector had never voluntarily left its island, didn't even respond to the Bewilderbeast known as the King of Dragons, and was probably (Fishlegs and Hiccup thought) deaf. The young newly hatched Eruptodon led a sheltered and secretive life within the volcano, and had another five hundred years of life in it. Hiccup would worry about that if that he was still here in five hundred years. Besides, had the Great Protector flown off, Mala would have had him assassinated by now.

Hiccup did not catch Fishlegs' eye.

"Heather!" Fishlegs blurted.

Heather stilled. "I'm only going to loop round the island. Clear my head a bit."

"Can I come with you?"

Heather blinked in surprise. "Of course, but -"

"I miss flying," Fishlegs said shyly, and Hiccup watched Heather's face soften.

Fishlegs and Heather took off into the sky. Astrid came slowly over to Hiccup's side and slung an arm around his waist, and they watched as Windshear looped the loop.

"She's scared Windshear will go too," Astrid said, echoing Hiccup's thoughts exactly. "She'll calm down when she realises that won't happen."

"What if she's right?" Hiccup said. "What if I made the wrong decision?"

"You made the right decision at the time," Astrid said. "You can't do anything about what happened next because it hasn't happened yet."

"If someone else had done it I'd probably react just like Heather. I can't blame her for getting her axe out."

"That's fine. We're a team. You handle the understanding and I'll do the blaming." Astrid squeezed Hiccup's waist. "And you wouldn't have reacted _just_ like Heather."

"You can't know that."

"Yes, I can. When it came down to it, you were willing to face letting Toothless go." Astrid leaned up very slightly on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Go take a minute in your hut. You need to take the weight off that leg, and it's the one place no-one will bother you."

"Oh really?" 

"Yes, because your mother's up there taking a break from people." Astrid unwound herself and shoved his shoulder gently. "Off you go." 

Hiccup limped towards the exit. Then he thought of something, and paused. "Astrid?"

"Yeah?"

"What were you going to do to Heather? If she hadn't put down the axe?"

Astrid smiled at him. "Take her down," she said. "As gently as possible."

Hiccup felt cold all down his spine. "That shouldn't be necessary."

"In the end it wasn't," Astrid said. "Go and rest." 

Hiccup turned reluctantly away, and trod towards his old hut. Behind him he could hear the scrape and clink of Astrid, gathering up her sharpened armoury.

His hut had changed very little from the day he'd left it. The only thing that had touched it was the weather. Hiccup could only assume that the local wildlife had smelled dragon and scuttled off; they'd had very few problems with mice and rats on Berk once the dragons had moved in, and now that they were gone cats were in demand. Astrid's Aunt Freya had given Astrid a pair of kittens for her first birthday on New Berk, saying brides should always have cats. (Astrid had pointed out that she wasn't married yet, and Freya Hofferson had said that it had been a done deal for at least the last five years and she, Freya, was bored of keeping an eye out for suitable litters of kittens and losing them because Astrid and Hiccup were disorganised. Astrid had gone scarlet.)

The door to his hut was open, though, and his mother was outside drinking one of Gothi's herbal teas. Hiccup sat down next to her, and groaned involuntarily as the weight came off his bad leg. 

"Sorry about the grand tour," he said, by way of an opening gambit.

"Sorry about your leg," his mother countered, and handed him her unfinished tea. "It's willow bark. I thought I had a headache but it turned out there were just a lot of people."

Hiccup nodded, and gulped at the tea. Valka had not adapted easily to Berk; several times Hiccup had thought she might climb onto Cloudjumper and fly away for good. But Gobber said she had always been like this, even before she and Stoick had married: quiet, prone to paling and vanishing into dark corners when things got loud or contentious. A strange wife for a chief, Gobber had said, but she was the only person Stoick would be calm for, and it had made sense in its own way.

The willow bark tea did not help straight away.

"It's beautiful," Valka said. "The Edge. It's beautiful. I can imagine it filled with dragons."

Hiccup opened his mouth and closed it again. "Mum…"

"Astrid was telling me all about it this morning. It was clever of your father to let you go, though I can't imagine he liked the idea. A good way for you to learn to lead."

Hiccup snorted involuntarily. "I don't think I led anyone anywhere except into trouble."

Valka smiled. "The rock plate inside. It's for Toothless?"

"His bed. Fishlegs and Meatlug helped me put it in. We had to reinforce the floor." Hiccup curled his hand around the mug, staring down into the dregs. He could still smell a faint curl of mint under the general damp medicinal odour. Gothi added mint to everything; she seemed permanently convinced that every Viking alive was on the verge of unconquerable indigestion. And given the general attitude to vegetables she probably wasn't wrong.

"If I'd had somewhere like this at your age I would have vanished and never come back."

"It was tempting," Hiccup said automatically, but that was a lie. He could never have left Berk forever.

"You all seem to miss it very much."

"We miss what it used to be." Hiccup drained his cup and set it down on the deck with a click. "It's not the same. Without Toothless and Stormfly and Barf and Belch and - it's just, we lived here for a good two years. Longer. Everything we see has history. Like, that patch there is where Tuffnut blew a hole in my hut trying to impress his horrible cousin. Over there is where Snotlout first hung the S he drags with him everywhere now. Over there is where Astrid got struck by lightning -"

" _What-_ "

"She's fine. She was blind for a few days. It didn't really slow her down. Ha, she wouldn't _let_ it. On that hill there is where the twins tried to put me in mortal peril with a bunch of logs so Barf and Belch could pay off their life debt and stop smothering me in fish…" Hiccup fell silent. 

Valka was extremely good at silences. She let them sit until you said whatever you were thinking about.

"And now we're back here without them," Hiccup said finally. Tears were pricking at his eyes.

Valka put an arm around his shoulders and pulled his head gently down to rest against her shoulder. He turned his face against the fur collar of her coat, and cried a little.

When he sat back upright, he felt better. Valka's eyes were glittering too, but they smiled shakily at each other, and Hiccup wiped his nose and cleared his throat. 

"Heather got me thinking again," he said.

"The dragon rider on the Razorwhip?" Valka said. "The one with the hasty landing technique?"

"Her. Yes. She was furious with me. And I keep thinking, especially since we got within sight of the Edge, what if I made the wrong decision? Dad would never have let an advantage like the dragons get away."

"Not advantage," Valka said. "Individuals." 

"Fellow warriors," Hiccup suggested. Valka smiled.

"No, it's true he wouldn't have done it. Your father didn't have a lot of imagination. I loved him very much, but even when he was a big ideas person he wasn't a new ideas person. You're a new ideas person. It's your biggest strength. If you had been a straightforward kind of son, Stoick would never have taken the decision, because the conditions would never have come about. You'd still live on Old Berk, you'd never have known me or Toothless, you wouldn't have Astrid."

"Uh," Hiccup said.

Valka's smile broadened. "You can't tell me Astrid was ever looking for a straightforward warrior. She's just different enough herself to have been looking for a different kind of person, too. Which is why she's never had any interest in Snotlout."

Hiccup thought the blood would probably never flow out of his bright red cheeks and ears. "Uh, I think that's because he's mostly an arrogant pig, actually."

"Like so many Viking men," Valka retorted calmly. Hiccup opened his mouth and shut it again. "Anyway. If you hadn't been a new ideas person, you wouldn't have thought differently enough to change the way Berk thinks about dragons, and end a war. And it's that ability to have new ideas that has brought Berk so many new technologies, and that ended the last war, and accomplished your ultimate goal of protecting the dragons."

"But we had to give up so much," Hiccup said. "I made other people give up so much. When I sent Toothless away -"

"When you gave him the space to make his own life."

" - however you put it, I took that choice away from everyone else."

"It's called being chief," Valka said dryly. "You make hard choices nobody wants to take responsibility for." 

" _Mum_." 

Valka shifted to sit cross-legged, and put her hands behind her to support her as she leant back. "Look at it this way. Constant conflict with people trying to secure the dragons was a drain on Berk's resources and a threat to its people."

Hiccup nodded. He remembered people starving when the Grimborn brothers went through Berk to get to him. He remembered Krogan setting Berk on fire, and Drago drowning it in ice, and Grimmel, strolling through the village's streets in the darkness, ready to poison its life.

"You removed the threat. Changed the game. And now a generation of children gets to grow up. Without dragons, yes, but they get to grow up, which is important, Hiccup."

Hiccup chewed on his lower lip. "I miss Toothless. And that hurts _so much_. And I think about you missing Cloudjumper, and Astrid missing Stormfly, and Eret missing Skullcrusher, and I… it's _my_ fault that everyone feels that pain. It's because of my decisions."

"Oh, Hiccup." Valka let out a noise somewhere between a sob and a sigh. "My gentle boy. Let me tell you what your father would have said."

Hiccup leaned forward and scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "What would Dad have said?" he asked, in a rather muffled voice.

"Don't carry everyone else's sorrows. A chief has enough of their own."

Hiccup screwed his eyes up, and ran his hands hard down his face.

"That's a very handsome dragon flying towards us," Valka observed, after a moment.

Hiccup took his face out of his hands quickly and blinked to focus on a familiar indigo and yellow dragon with a threefold tail. "That's the Triple Strike. And that's Dagur and Mala, I told you about them."

"Does he always fly out of the sun?"

"Astrid showed him how and now he does it every time." Hiccup stood up and waved to them. "Well, better face the music. Oh, by the way, Mum."

"Yes? Is this about that poor Jorgenson boy and his awful father?" 

"Uh, no, although if you could have a word with Spitelout -" Valka nodded. "- great, thank you. No, I just wanted to say thanks."

Valka smiled up at him very softly. "You're welcome."

They stood up and stepped back out of the way to give the Triple Strike room to land. Hiccup took Valka's hand in his, and held it tight.

Mala and Dagur were smiling. Hiccup wasn't sure it meant that much, but at least they weren't leading off with yelling like Heather, and at least the Triple Strike was friendly, which meant Dagur hadn't communicated any anger he might be feeling to his dragon. Hiccup laughed when the Triple Strike butted its head against his chest, and stroked its muzzle the way it liked. (He had never figured out if the Triple Strike was a boy or a girl or neither: Loki only knew where the Grimborns' henchmen had captured it.) He tried not to cry along with the laughing - the Triple Strike was nothing like Toothless at all and Hiccup had never bonded with it, but the gesture was so familiar - and hastily dragged himself away to greet its riders. 

Valka was already talking to Mala and Dagur. While never a public person, she was comfortable enough playing the role of The Chief's Mother for limited periods with the understanding that they would stay limited, and she had met both Mala and Dagur a couple of times before- though not Heather. She covered for Hiccup with greetings and polite questions about the journey until Hiccup ducked away from the Triple Strike and was immediately enveloped in Dagur's arms. 

Hiccup, who had forgotten to brace, lost all the air from his lungs. "Hey, Dagur," he wheezed. "Welcome back. Good trip?"

"Brother! Yes, yes, all good. A bit slower than usual but it wasn't like I was trying to invade this time."

"Good, because Astrid gets pretty testy about that kind of thing."

Mala smiled indulgently at them. Valka controlled the twitching of her eyebrows with difficulty. 

"We hear you've been having a difficult time," Mala said smoothly. 

Hiccup's stomach dropped. Here it came. "Yeah. You could say that."

"We weren't affected," Mala continued. "As you know, neither the King of Dragons nor the Great Protector answer to other dragons. Although wild dragons have been rather thin on the ground lately."

"Mm," Hiccup said, in a rather strangled voice. 

"It must have been hard for you, Hiccup," Dagur said, his eyes going wide and soulful in that way that was always sincere on Heather but was only truthful on Dagur about fifty percent of the time. Looking at him, though, Hiccup thought he meant it this time. "I know Toothless meant a lot to you."

"Mm," Hiccup repeated, and looked down at his feet, both the metal and the flesh. 

Dagur patted him on the shoulder. Hiccup staggered, but caught himself. "We'll talk about it later. In the meantime, I know Mala would like a word, so why don't I get out of your way? I'd like to see how the landing's getting on anyway. Valka, can I offer you a lift down to the beach? My sister is dying to meet you, she's heard all about your sanctuary."

Hiccup wondered if Dagur had spoken to Heather recently on this particular subject.

Valka glanced at him, and Hiccup weighed up his options in a split second. Politely phrased, the offer would be hard to refuse without bad manners. He needed to talk to Mala anyway. His mother's presence wasn't a guarantee of safety; the best guarantee of that was Mala's own rigid sense of justice. He would have liked to avoid having the conversation that was undoubtedly on its way, but better to have it in private than otherwise. 

"I know how much you miss flying," Hiccup said. Valka's face softened. 

"It's true there's nothing that feels quite as free," she agreed. "I would love a lift, thank you, Dagur, and I would love to hear more about your dragon. I've only seen him at a distance before. He's beautiful."

Dagur's eyes lit up at the opportunity to talk about his dragon. The Triple Strike, who knew when it was being praised as well as any other dragon, hopped over and nuzzled Valka, who laughed softly. 

"Well, the more I know about him the less I feel like I know about him," Dagur began, extending a flamboyant arm to usher Valka onto the dragon's back. "Ladies first. I actually met him here at the Edge…"

Their conversation faded into the distance, the last fragments caught and whirled away by the breeze. Hiccup and Mala stood and watched them disappear. 

"Do you mind if we sit down?" Hiccup said. "My leg is giving me trouble now I'm on the ground so much more." 

It wasn't completely true. The tea and rest had helped. But if Hiccup was going to be on his feet all day, he'd rather sit down when he could. And the statement itself wasn't a lie.

"Of course," Mala said, folding gracefully to the deck.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Below their dangling feet, Hiccup could see the Berserkers' and the Defenders' longships pulling up and unloading on the beach, under what was obviously rather chaotic supervision from Dagur, Eret and Gobber. But Mala was watching it and smiling, and she didn't tend to smile at pointless chaos, so it was probably fine. 

After a few moments Mala pulled her feet up onto the deck and crossed her legs. "We all thought we'd have longer before we were chief, I expect."

"Uh, what?" Hiccup said, jerked out of a reverie involving the blue sky and the limitless horizon and the cooperation and diplomacy he'd always wanted happening down below, so tangible he almost thought he could hear Toothless crashing around in the hut. But not, ultimately, real.

Mala looked at him, and Hiccup realised suddenly that she wasn't more than ten years older than him. She and Dagur were roughly the same age, though the scars and weathering from all that time sailing around the archipelago attacking people aged Dagur considerably. And when Hiccup had encountered Mala, six or seven years before, she'd been an established chief - Queen, whatever - with no mention of her predecessor. Dagur had been in his teens when he inherited Oswald's mantle; that was why he'd disappeared his much younger sister and convinced the leading Berserkers that he was unhinged enough to have killed his father. Propaganda to make himself look as invulnerable and capricious as a Changewing, and twice as dangerous to attack.

Hiccup had been lucky, in comparison. He'd had years to learn with and from Stoick. And although his father's death had been sudden and cruel, it had come when Hiccup (despite his protestations) was ready to lead. He had Astrid, too, and the twins and Fishlegs and even Snotlout. The closest either Dagur or Mala got was Throk. No wonder Dagur had been so desperate to draw Heather to his side.

Hiccup let out a breath. "Yes," he said.

Mala looked away again, over the water. "It's a lot of decision-making power to bear. People look to you for salvation." 

Hiccup nodded.

"In your case, people and dragons."

Hiccup swallowed. "Yes."

"A lot to carry with you."

Hiccup nodded and stared at his knees.

"I think you did well," Mala said. Hiccup's head shot up, and he found that Mala was smiling at him with a kindness more usually concealed by her leader's pragmatism.

"Heather -"

"I know," Mala said, lifting one hand slightly. "Heather makes some good points. Believe me, Dagur and I have heard all of them at least twice since we learned what you'd done. But she sees things only from her own perspective, and since Berserker Island and my own homeland are much safer than Berk has been lately, she hasn't felt the same magnitude of pressure you and your riders have. She understands what it's like to fight Grimborn, or Bludvist, or men like them, but she's ultimately a solitary fighter. She doesn't understand what it's like to command fighters against a threat like that, or to be responsible for a vulnerable civilian population. Human _and_ dragon."

"I don't think I've ever met a vulnerable Defender of the Wing," Hiccup said, reeling, but grasping for gratitude. He hadn't feared Mala's reaction the way he'd feared Astrid's or his mother's, but they needed every ally they had, and Dagur would certainly act in concert with her if she was angry. He was too relieved by this show of support to really feel it yet.

Mala smiled. "It's all relative."

Hiccup smiled himself, briefly, but then it dropped from his face as he remembered Heather's anger, and he let his hands drop loose between his knees, his back hunching. "I just… I guess I wonder, what if Heather’s right? What if there was a better choice?"

Mala stretched out her legs and sighed. "There's no way to know that. And I wasn't there. But from what I heard, you made a strategically sound choice. And Dagur said he thought it was the bravest thing you'd done since you broke Bludvist's Bewilderbeast's control over Toothless."

"That was just a massive risk," Hiccup said, appalled. "I couldn't face the idea that it wouldn't work!" 

Mala shrugged affectionately, looking as dreamy as she ever got. "Well, he's a Berserker, what can I say?"

"Uh." 

"If it helps, he said it was smart, too." Mala lifted a hand to her eyes and squinted into the sun at the glittering figure of a Razorwhip dragon curving through the sky. "Who's that with Heather?"

Hiccup squinted likewise. "Astrid." He raised his eyebrows and rubbed his hand across his mouth. "She must be giving people rides. She took Fishlegs up, anyway. I'm glad she and Astrid are, um-" No longer trying to kill each other _-_ "getting along better, Heather was pretty mad when she arrived and Astrid was not pleased."

"Dagur did warn Heather to watch her temper for just that reason," Mala said rather grimly. 

"It was fine." Hiccup rubbed his temples. "And I understand why she's upset. If it had been me…"

They trailed off into silence for a while. Heather and Astrid looped the loop, to the sound of cheers from the beach below.

"Dagur asked Heather to do some scouting," Mala told Hiccup, after a bit. "She went out as far as the Wingmaidens. Atali sent her diplomatic regards, but I left them with Throk for safekeeping. I'll give them to you later, supposing one of the children hasn't dropped them overboard." Mala grinned. "She did ask me to tell you to make sure you don't plan your _wedding_ at the same time as hatching season."

"Ah, uh," Hiccup said, tongue suddenly tangled up. "Well."

Mala laughed her rare, musical laugh. "You don't have to say anything. What you do need to know is that Atali reports that a number of their Razorwhips are migrating north. She's actually quite glad to have a clear reason for that. So long as the Razorwhips are safe."

A vision of the Wingmaidens, stripped of their sacred charge and trapped on their forested island, flashed through Hiccup's head. He dropped his head into his hands and groaned. "Oh, Odin, I've ruined their way of life. I thought the Razorwhips would stay too, like the Great Protector. They never had anything to do with Toothless, ever."

"Dragons make choices," Mala said calmly, "just as humans do. And is it the case that dragons are incapable of leaving the sanctuary?"

"The Hidden World," Hiccup said. "We called it the Hidden World." His eyes followed Heather and Astrid: someone had set up targets for them to throw knives from Windshear's back. At this distance he couldn't tell who was winning. "No. Toothless and Stormfly left with me and Astrid."

"In which case perhaps they just have a new migratory route."

Somehow, Hiccup couldn't let this reassure him. "Heather said she'd noticed populations of wild dragons falling. And what about the Great Protector?"

"She's parthenogenetic and she lives for centuries, Hiccup, by the time her successor is a problem either she will have offspring or we will have figured something out." Mala sighed. "As for the wild dragons… at least they'll be safe. Things will change, but certainly not more than they would have done had we been overrun by _more_ unhinged hunters."

"It's been hard adapting, I'll tell you that much." Hiccup scrunched his hands in his hair. "We had dragons for ten years. That's forever and no time at all. We have to change the way we do _everything_."

"Well, the Defenders of the Wing can help, if you've forgotten how." Mala wasn't looking at him, but out into the sky. "And Dagur will have advice; he had to rebuild the Berserkers from the ground up. But perhaps later. I think we're about to have visitors."

Hiccup looked up, and saw Windshear coming into land - much more neatly, this time. He smiled, and got to his feet. 

"Astrid wanted to see Hiccup," Hesther called as Astrid leapt lightly down, "and I was wondering if you wanted a lift, Mala? Unless -" She cleared her throat and her voice took on a self-conscious edge. "Unless you want a spin first, Hiccup."

Hiccup's smile wavered, and a tide of something painful and bereft welled up inside his throat, leaving it so choked he had to clear it twice before saying: "Thanks, Heather. Windshear. But - uh - maybe not today." His voice had gone thick and stupid, too. But Heather looked at him with more understanding than she had all day, and Mala patted his shoulder lightly.

"It wouldn't be the same, no," Heather said more gently. "Mala, are you coming?"

.

"Absolutely. Don't take off without me." Mala hopped onto Windshear's back. "I'll see you later, Hiccup."

When Windshear had taken off again, Astrid seized Hiccup in a hug and held him tight. He ducked his head into her shoulder and held on until the pressure behind his eyes subsided, and he could lift his face and say: "What did you _do_ to her?"

"Nothing," Astrid said. "I think it was mostly Fishlegs. I'm kind of wondering if she and Fishlegs are back on."

Hiccup tried to contemplate this and gave up. "But Ruffnut…"

"Remember Throk? They were looking very friendly. Apparently he knows a lot about fireworks."

"Thor," Hiccup said, rubbing his eyes with his palms. "Half my riders are going to run off and live with Berserkers. Slash Defenders of the Wing. Both."

"Nah," Astrid said, in rather an odd voice. "Not after what you said earlier."

"Wha - oh. No quests." Hiccup sighed. "Yeah. Well…"

"I don't think it did your authority any harm. Besides." Astrid tugged him down to sit back on the deck, and Hiccup wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek against her hair. "Ruffnut will never leave Tuffnut. He can't survive in the wild without her. There's a reason they bonded with a Zippleback. And I don't see Tuff moving away from a community where he's comfortable. As for Fishlegs, he's a homebody, and Heather's a restless spirit. It's not going to last. At least not in a… in a fixed kind of a form."

"Dragons, though. She can give him dragons." For all that they had all collectively lost, and for all he was still onboard with the strict secrecy surrounding the Hidden World, it was Fishlegs who pined most after the knowledge left undiscovered and the world of dragons.

"For how long?" Astrid said, and shrugged. "Don't worry about it, Hiccup."

"Can't help it."

Astrid turned her face up and kissed him lightly on the corner of his mouth. "I know."

Hiccup let out a long breath and pressed his lips to the top of her head, then returned his cheek to its previous position, leaning against her top braid. "How are things going down there?"

"Good. Most people are on schedule. There's a boatload of Thorstons that maybe got lost, but I'm not borrowing trouble."

Hiccup snorted. She elbowed him gently. "Thorstons are trouble," he said. "I'm more worried about whatever poor Scauldron they ran into."

"They'll probably run off to the Hidden World just to get shot of the Thorstons." Astrid shifted slightly in his arms. "It's a good turnout already, anyway."

"Good." 

They sat for a few moments in silence, and then Astrid uncrossed and recrossed her legs and said: "I was thinking, if we were going to finally get married, the Edge might be a good place to do it. But actually, you know, being here, I would rather… make it about the future than the past. So I'd prefer New Berk."

Hiccup choked on air. "Um, I - I mean, you know, I've always been clear I would marry you literally anywhere and - and any _when_ you said the word, but I thought you were, um, waiting for something. That we weren't ready yet. What changed? Um. Astrid?"

Astrid had leaned forward, leaned away from him slightly, dropping her head into her hands. She mumbled something into her palms.

"What?"

"I said I'm getting this all _wrong_ ," Astrid groaned, and pulled her hands irritably down her face. "Ugh, it's the betrothal gift _thing_ all over again-"

"Hey!" Hiccup said, alarmed. He laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her hopefully. "We figured that out, didn't we? Just tell me. It's okay."

Astrid finally looked back at him and smiled in return - only a tiny pale shadow of her normal broad grin, but it still made Hiccup's twitching heart settle. 

"Fine," she said. "It's just that… when we still had the dragons, we were kind of stuck. We hadn't figured out how to be adults and leaders with them. We leaned on them. We weren't growing any more, or thinking ahead. It was all dragons, they were the centre of our lives, and there's nothing wrong with that exactly. But we weren't balanced. It was havoc."

"Hey, I thought we did okay."

Astrid shot him a look.

Hiccup raised his hands. "But you're right, it was havoc."

Astrid continued. "When we… let them go, let the dragons go, made the hard-" her voice hitched, and Hiccup put an arm around her shoulder; her deep breath resonated through her chest, and then her voice picked up, steadier - "the impossible choice, we kind of had to... to grow, and live up to it, and we did. And I think we're the best team we could ever be, both of us. I think there's no-one else who could beat this, what we have going on. I think that if we can do this, we can do anything, I think you're the person I want to take on the world with, and I think we should get married."

"I think that's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me," Hiccup replied, grinning so hard his face hurt, "and if you want, I will personally fetch Gothi and my mother and your aunt right this second, and we can say the words now."

Temptation warred with pragmatism in Astrid's eyes; she bit her lower lip in a bright flash of sharp teeth, and then released it. "I was going to suggest midwinter," she said. "We'll be established then, we're on track for a surplus, we can roll it together with Snoggletog and have a _huge_ celebration, make it part of us growing as a people. And also not interfere with all your political objectives for this gathering."

Love spread through Hiccup like the warmth of a hearth fire after a long winter flight, and for once the memory of the association didn't hurt. He smiled at Astrid. "You know, my dad once told me I could be a great chief all by myself, but I'd need you to be a really _good_ one. I always knew what he meant. Midwinter it is."

Astrid leaned forward into his lap and caught his mouth with hers; they got lost in the embrace for a few moments, and then Hiccup nearly fell backwards off the deck, and Astrid grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him upright. 

"I mean, you know, I would also marry you right now, if you wanted," she said, flushed rose-pink and bright-eyed. "I could run and get Gothi, and -"

"But your plan is so much smarter," Hiccup said, and kissed the tip of her nose.

"Ugh, _smarter_ -" Astrid began, and then a flare went off down below. It was one of the ones Hiccup had been experimenting with, made without Monstrous Nightmare gel; it fell short a bit, but it was still clearly identifiable. It was blue, which meant it was Eret's - and since probably neither Throk nor the twins could have got it away from him that meant there really was trouble.

"We should probably go deal with that," Hiccup sighed. 

"Eret's smart. He'll be fine."

"Yeah, but the twins are down there looking for things to blow up. You've got your flight suit on, right?"

Astrid nodded, let out a deep sigh of her own, and punched Hiccup lightly in the arm. "That's for being right," she said, and kissed his cheek. "That's for everything else."

When he leapt off the deck and spread the wings he'd made himself, Hiccup was straightforwardly, uncomplicatedly happy for the first time in months.

It was a great party. The fireworks were beautiful, the food was delicious, and - miraculously - nobody started a fight that couldn't be stopped by Dagur, Eret or Throk banging a couple of heads together. Spitelout did try to start something, but Valka smiled a particular unfriendly smile at him and he very clearly changed his mind. 

Overall, a roaring success.

The dragon riders stayed up till dawn, and then all - by silent agreement, or habit, or both - climbed up to the clubhouse, and rolled back into the bed rolls they'd been sleeping in the previous night. Hiccup had wondered if Ruffnut would stay with Throk, and had maybe been too obvious about it, because she tossed her head and said in a rather superior voice that fun was all very well, but it was dragon riders only around here. Hiccup gave up on understanding that until both the alcohol and the hangover had worn off.

To his surprise, Heather had joined the group with Fishlegs, and the two of them were trailing up the path together in companionable silence. Hiccup blinked at them.

"If I'm not welcome -" Heather began, with a hint of her old defensiveness.

"You are," Hiccup said quickly. "I just didn't think you'd want to join us."

"Well," Heather said, and scuffed the ground with one elegant toe. "Dragon riders have got to stick together, right? Even if we don't always understand each other."

"Yeah," Hiccup said, smiling a tiny smile that broadened when Astrid looped her arms around his waist from behind and lodged her chin on his shoulder. He could see his smile reflected in Heather's face. "Right. We're all doing our best, right?"

Heather didn't reply, but she nodded.

"Tomorrow is a new day," Hiccup said, and glanced at the faint lightening of the sky beyond the cliffs. "Literally."


End file.
